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Regional Editor Guide
Posting daily roundups Be sure to follow Paul's Style Guide And please don't forget to follow the correct style for roundup titles!! Also make sure you're familiar with all the material in the Author Area and that you make sure to share this with each author you recruit: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/gv-authors/ Using Bloglines Click here: GV Bloglines for Regional Editors How to recurit and manage volunteer bloggers Searching for an author: * First, set a list of priorities of the regions. Priority maybe based upon how active is blogging in that region. The more active, the higher the priority. Alternatively, you can set priority by popularity of a blogger. Some blogger are popular in a region, even if that region is not very active in blogging. * The active blogsphere region means you have many bloggers, which means your life will be easier to find one out of the mass. Pick a couple of the most active blogs and contact their blogger. * Or if you know a particular blogger personally, approaching him will make your life easy. If you know few bloggers in the region which you target, it’s always advisable to start by asking them to help you in covering that region. * Some bloggers are already active in bridge blogging in different regions. If you know of one in the region which you want to cover, that blogger would be your first target, since s/he is already doing what you are looking to have at GV. * At the time of searching for an author, it is advisable to look for bloggers who have their real ID published at their blog or somewhere else. The reason is that GV prefer to have known author than anon ones for credibility issues as this subject is of big debate when it comes to news that of interest to the MSM and anon blogger reporting it. Yet, if for any reason the personal security of the blogger is at risk, then try to avoid getting that blogger as an author, but if s/he is the only available, then be it, and keep his ID anon as s/he wish. New author guide: So now we talked how to start and pick a blogger to contribute as author. Next is what to tell him: * First, I would tell him that this task is a voluntary contribution. Expectations should be clear from day one that he is not going to get paid for what he is doing. * Tell him that he is expected to make a WEEKLY contribution and that you both have to agree on a particular day of the week when he can post. * Give him a quick roundup of what is going on GV and how things are run. Best would be to give him few links of some authors posts so that s/he get an idea of how things are written in general. * Also, it is good to show him an author profile page, which shows the picture of the author and his brief that s/he wrote about her/him self and that a link to her/his blog is in his profile page, which ultimately will get him few more visitors through that links as will. * Make sure to tell the author that he can include her/him self in the weekly roundup post. He should not feel hesitant that he should not mention a post of his from her/his blog. * Ask him if he has a starting list of blogs of her/his region. If s/he does not have, then maybe you need to help in building a startup list of these blogs. Best would be to show her/him our aggregator at bloglines, were you both can update the list. Alternatively, s/he should be encouraged to update the region wiki page, or create a new one if it does not exist. There too, you may add new blogs to the list. * Last but not least, you may ask her/him to contribute to the daily roundups also. In case your region is very wide and you may have trouble following up the whole region, you can ask authors to contribute few roundups (maybe a max of two per author) from /her/his region. Author management: * Create a new mailing list and add new authors to the list. It is advisable to have a separate mailing list for each region so that you can correspond with them away from the GV-Authors list. Normally such a mailing lists is very low traffic. * Create a new account for the author after you ask him which email address s/he wants to be subscribed with. Then send the new account info to the new author my EMAIL, and as her/him to change the password as soon as s/he login for first time. * It is advisable not to give a new author a privilege level above ‘1’ (one). Which means that s/he should know that his posts (and roundups) will have to be saved as draft, so that you review them and edited until it is ready to be published by you (of course under his name). * If the new author is not familiar with wordpress, then maybe you need to walk him through couple of times until s/he get to be comfortable using it. * Make sure that you give her/him all your contacts so that s/he can get in touch with you in case of emergencies (breaking news events, disaster in a region, etc..). It would be great if you add her/him to your IM list so that he can get you instantly when you are online. In fact, for her/his first post, it is advisable that you walk her/him through. * If you agreed that the blogger would remain anonymous, make sure not to disclose any of her/his info while you are creating the account, other than what you agreed to publish. --Haitham 03:14, 18 Feb 2006 (EST)